


What's Love Got To Do With It?

by lanalucy



Series: Academy Frakbuddies [6]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Drunk Sex, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Gen, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:52:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanalucy/pseuds/lanalucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything was going so well.  Why'd he have to go and frak it up?</p><p>Huge thanks to newnumbertwo for brainstorming this with me, and for the beta!</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Love Got To Do With It?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluuefiire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluuefiire/gifts).



Kara wasn’t sure what had happened, but something was different between her and Helo.  It had started the night she’d made good on that Triad bet.  They still did everything together - running, working out, sparring, frakking - but he’d been acting weird.  He deferred to her more often.  He turned down invitations when they didn’t include her.  He wanted to do something together nearly every night and pouted when she tried to do something without him.

It was driving her crazy.  She needed to talk to somebody who understood men.  In any other case, she’d just talk to Helo, but since he was the root of her irritation in this case, that was right out.   _Well, when it doubt, drink_.

~*~

She managed to slip away before Helo showed up, and picked a place she thought he wouldn’t find her.  When the bartender greeted her, she thought _guess I was wrong about that.  Frak.  Have we been here before?_

“Where’s your boyfriend?”

 _Guess not._  Kara grunted.  “What boyfriend?”  She tapped the bar.  

“Your boyfriend.  Tall guy.  Great cheekbones.  You two are always together.  You break up?”

Kara laughed, a little confused now.  “Oh, Helo.  Nah.  Just felt like getting out without him tonight.  Hard to think with him around, if you know what I mean.”  She smirked at the bartender.

“With him around, I might consider giving up thinking.”  The bartender grinned back at her.  “He’s mighty easy on the eyes.”

Kara downed her shot.  “That he is.  Easy on other things, too.  Hit me again.”

“I bet.  He looks like he’d be….talented with his hands.”  She set down two shots.  

_Apparently she knows me well enough to know I’m gonna want more._

“He’s training to be a Raptor ECO.  He’s certainly good with his hands - has fantastic fine motor control,” she tossed down another shot and gave the woman a reckless grin. “but Viper pilots are better.  They’ve got a better grip.”   _I haven’t frakked anybody but Helo in months.  I need some new blood._

The woman chuckled back at her.  “Good to know.  Sounds serious, though, you needing to think without him.”

Kara twirled the shot glass back and forth.  “Not really serious.  He’s been treating me different, and I don’t get why.  Nothing’s changed.  We’ve been friends since first year, and now, all of a sudden, instead of treating me like a buddy, he’s treating me like a girl.”  Her face twisted on the last word, like it was a foul taste in her mouth.

“He’s in love with you.”

“What?  Why would he be in love with me?  That’s ridiculous!”

She wiped a couple of glasses dry.  “Anything happen that might’ve made him see you in a new way?”

“Nothing that I can think…”  Kara trailed off and thought back to that night.  “Well, frak.”

“Lotta years back here.  Lotta men on the other side of this bar.  I still don’t get them, so I can’t really tell you why he’s in love with you, but when they start treating you nicer, it’s almost always because their feelings have changed.  So, unless he’s cheating on you...”

Kara blew that idea off, shaking her head.  “Nah.  Even if he was frakking somebody else, it’s not like I’d care.  We’re not exclusive.”  She thought again about how long it had been since she’d been with someone else and frowned into her drink.  “Not intentionally, anyway.”   _Well, frak.  What the frak do I do with that?  Helo’s not supposed to be in love with me.  Why’d he have to go and do that?_  She finished her drinks in silence and left the bar with an absent wave in the bartender’s direction.

Kara stomped along the road toward the Academy, deep in her own thoughts.  She avoided running into people by instinct.   _Helo’s in love with me.  I guess now that I look at how things’ve been, it makes sense.  He’s gotten all clingy, wanting to be with me all the time.  Is this because he found out about my mom?  I thought he felt sorry for me, and that was bad enough.  Frakkitall!  Helo’s a great friend - best one I’ve had in years.  How’m I supposed to be friends with him now?  People get all weird and stupid when they’re in love.  Godsdammit._  By the time she got back to her dorm room, she’d worked herself into a frenzy, and decided that maybe a no-holds-barred spar would relieve some of the tension.  She changed clothes and headed for the gym where the upperclassmen worked out.   _Someone bigger and tougher would be great. Someone who’s not in love with me and afraid to hurt me.  Frak.  Stop thinking about him, Kara._

A couple more days passed, during which Kara knew she was confusing the crap out of Helo, because she was bitchy and she wouldn’t make out with him.  She kept catching this wounded expression on his face that was exactly the reason she avoided this whole love thing in the first place.   _People love you, you love them, they can hurt you.  I don’t want to hurt him, but how else am I going to get out of this?_

Kara came back from class one day to a note stuck under her door.  Someone had caught a call at the communal phone and taken a message: _Your mother is at the Veteran’s Hospital.  Wants to see you_.  She crumpled up the note and tried to come up with a reasonable excuse for ignoring the summons.   _Maybe if she’s in the hospital, all those people around, she’ll be nicer._  She steeled herself for the visit, though.  She knew that the presence of Zeus himself wouldn’t make her mother be any kinder to her only daughter.

Helo called to remind her about the party she’d said she would go to, and to ask when he was supposed to pick her up.

“It’s good, Helo.  I have to go take care of some business first.  I’ll meet you there, okay?  She hoped he wouldn’t ask any questions.   _Helo can be the nosiest motherfrakker.  Must be something he learned from having so damn many sisters._

“Are you sure, Kara?  I can wait and go with you when you get back.”

 _Gods.  He’s got to get over this shit._  “No.  I don’t know how long it’ll take, and I’ll have to come back here to change.  I’ll meet you there.”  She heard him sigh over the line.  “I promise.”

When she got to the party, she tossed down three or four drinks right off, before she’d even made it much past the foyer.  Visiting Socrata had left her in the mood to do some violence, and she eyed the first-years serving drinks, wondering which one would let her ride him into oblivion without reporting her.  She desperately needed a good, hard frak, and if a little blood was spilled, so much the better.   _Ah, maybe him.  He’s big.  And he looks like he’s got an issue he needs to work the edges off of himself._  She kept half an eye on the guy while she circulated the party, making no effort to find Helo, though she caught sight of him on the other side of the room two or three times.  The first-year got just tipsy enough that she could tell he’d have no trouble mixing a little sex with the violence, and she herded him toward the door, hoping Helo wouldn’t show up just in time to stop her.  They made it to her dorm room, almost coming to blows once on the way.   _Oh, yeah.  He’s perfect.  Helo would never do this for me.  Shut up, Kara._  She kicked the guy’s legs out from under him and dug her nails in as she followed him into the rack.

Every scratch and bruise and bite pushed her mother and Helo farther and farther away. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written because a reader was kind enough to give me some constructive criticism on the transition from happy to breaking up. Hope this works for you, b.


End file.
